From left: Rhea Sianipar, Simon Talbot and Geraldine O’Grady of Mondelez. (Photo courtesy of Mondelez)
Drinking coffee has long been a favorite pastime in Indonesia. Both farmers in remote islands and powerful decision-makers in Jakarta enjoy a cup of Java or two to break up their daily grind.
Indonesia produces 748,000 tons of coffee per year, making it the third-largest producer in the world after Brazil an d Vietnam. Approximately 6.6 percent of the world’s coffee comes from the archipelago.
And not just any coffee. This country’s varieties are among the darlings of connoisseurs around the world.
Among the most prized are Kopi Gayo from Aceh, Kopi Toraja from South Sulawesi and Kopi Kintamani from Bali.
About 67 percent of Indonesia’s coffee is exported to over 80 countries.
The main buyers of Indonesian coffees are Germany, the United States, Japan, Italy and Malaysia.
But while our coffees are enjoyed in the comfortable surrounds of cafes across the world, the harsh struggles of Indonesian coffee farmers remain unseen and unheard.
The farmers
“A lot of [coffee] farmers in Indonesia have converted their plantations to other crops,” coffee expert Adi W. Taroepratjeka said. “They can no longer make ends meet by growing coffee only.”
Adi is one of the few highly acclaimed Q-Graders, certified coffee-graders licensed by the Coffee Quality Institute, an international non-profit organization aiming to improve the quality of coffee and the working conditions of those who produce it.
Climate change, pests and fluctuating prices greatly destabilize the income of Indonesian coffee farmers. Many live in dire poverty in spite of their hard work on the plantations.
Hundreds of coffee farmers in Sumatra and Sulawesi — Indonesia’s main coffee producing regions — have converted their coffee plantations to cacao, corn, tobacco and rubber.
And if things continue as they are now, many are likely to follow.
Some other farmers have diversified. They still maintain a small plot for coffee, but they are planting the rest with other crops.
According to Adi, the main problem for coffee farmers in Indonesia is low productivity.
The productivity of Indonesia’s coffee plants lag far behind those of Vietnam and Brazil.
Indonesia’s coffee farms produce approximately 760 kilograms per hectare per year, while those in Vietnam produce between three and four tons per hectare. Brazil’s coffee growers produce between six and seven tons per hectare.
“Many farmers here in Indonesia lack good agricultural skills,” Adi said. “And that’s why their trees aren’t so productive for them.”
Most of these farmers have inherited their coffee plantations from their parents and grandparents. And since these farmers generally live in remote villages, many of them have limited access to information, education and technology. Thus, they cannot improve their coffee-farming knowledge. They just continue with techniques passed down from their parents and grandparents; they are not ready to cope with climate change, pests and other threats.
And seeing the impoverished lives of coffee farmers in their villages, many young men and women vow never to follow in their footsteps.
“They’d rather move to the big cities and work as ojek [motorbike taxi] riders or warnet [ Internet cafe] keepers there than work on coffee plantations,” Adi said.
As a result, many coffee plantations in these villages are left unattended.
Global initiative
To address these concerns Mondelez International — an American multi-national confectionery, food and beverage conglomerate — recently started sustainability training programs for farmers worldwide under the banner head “Coffee Made Happy” (CMH). Through these programs, the company will train and educate farmers within their supply chains on sustainable agricultural practices.
“It’s very important for our business, sustainability is the enabler of our business growth,” Mondelez International director Simon Talbot said. “It’s not green-washing, it’s not something on the side.”
With these intensive courses, Mondelez farmers will be able to produce better crops, increase their productivity, and thus, enhance their welfare (and presumably help them make more money).
Mondelez buys a huge amount of cocoa, coffee and wheat from countries around the globe, including Indonesia.
Each year, the company purchases Indonesian coffee worth more than $150 million.
Coffee Made Happy
The CMH program was launched internationally in October 2012.
Mondelez says it plans to invest a minimum $200 million to train and develop at least 1 million coffee farmers around the world until 2020.
Since its inception, the project has trained thousands of coffee farmers in Vietnam and Peru. In Indonesia, the project was launched on April 24.
The first stage of the program is set to go ahead in Semendo, a coffee-growing area in Lampung, South Sumatra.
Lampung has 161,242 hectares of coffee plantations, which produced 148,711 tons of coffees last year.
But coffee-farming is a dying art in the area.
“What we see [in Semendo] is unproductive trees,” said Geraldine O’Grady, the global sustainability manager at Mondelez International. “Trees that haven’t been looked after. Trees that need to be replenished.”
For the CMH program, the company has built a large training center in the village.
“It’s a place where farmers can come to learn, congregate and meet each other to share ideas and information,” O’Grady said.
The program will train over 3,000 coffee farmers in Semendo on farm management, record-keeping, budgeting and planning.
“We hope that [the farmers] will have a kind of long-term view of their farms, not just from month to month, or year to year,” she said.
The training program will last for about three years in Semendo.
“It’s sort of phased,” O’Grady said. “There are intensive periods [of in-class training] for a few weeks. And then, it’s probably more practical and hands-on training on the farms.”
In the training program, Mondelez engages agronomists and experts from local and international organizations, including the 4C Coffee Association, Rainforest Alliance, Indonesian Coffee and Cocoa Research Institute (ICCRI), and IDH (Initiative Duurzame Handel, or Sustainable Trade Initiative).
CMH will also invite female farmers to take part in its training programs.
“It’s actually important that women are included in coffee-farming decisions, not just [doing] the work,” O’Grady said. “When they’re included in the decision-making, their income is usually better.”
Outcome
Mondelez says the outcomes hoped for during this three-year training program are increased effectiveness of coffee-farming, the increased value of coffee-farming in the community and the improvement of environmental impacts of the coffee farms in the region.
“We’ll monitor as we go along,” O’Grady said. “At the very end, we’ll do an impact assessment to really look back and see what we’ve done [for that region].”
Adi, the coffee expert, said he approved of CMH.
“Many large international companies just buy from us, without caring how the farmers live and work,” he said.
Mondelez says the program will be rolled out to other parts of Indonesia in future.
“Semendo is just the first step,” O’Grady said.
“We’re actually in discussion with a partner for another project in Indonesia. It’s probably going to be a lot bigger than this one.”
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